Kοsovo: Turkey’s edgy Balkan link

KATHIMERINI (GREECE), Tuesday June 21, 2005

Deceptively quiet Prizren is home to 30,000 ethnic Turks and a sizable Turkish military presence

By Burak Bekdil - Kathimerini English Edition

Prizren/Ankara - “Ankara, 1298 km” reads a signpost in the barracks housing a battalion of Turkish peacekeepers in this quiet but fragile town in southwestern Kosovo. Prizren is not just another war-weary (former) Yugoslav town, but the scene of silent battles on many invisible fronts. The future of this small autonomous territory will probably reshuffle power politics in the entire Balkan zone.

Kosovo looks deceptively peaceful. In reality, it is like a time bomb with a slow-burning fuse. Its future will shape a chain of restructuring for every foreign state that views this tiny, mountainous land from a strategic standpoint.

Kosovo was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 624 years until 1912 when the ethnic Albanians rose against the Istanbul government for independence, and, at the same time, triggered the First Balkan War. This explains its historical/cultural ties to present-day Turkey, and probably why Turkish troops are stationed in Prizren, where 30,000 ethnic Turks also live.

The defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First Balkan War left Kosovo under Serbian rule, with the exception of brief Austrian and Bulgarian occupations during World War I.

Under Tito’s regime, 246,000 ethnic Turks migrated to Turkey in 1945-66. In 1963, Kosovo won autonomy from the Belgrade government. The collapse of the former Yugoslav federation sparked a wave of separatist violence in Kosovo in the 1990s.

Violent ethnic clashes in late 1990s ended after the federal Yugoslav government agreed to withdraw from Kosovo in June 1999 — following a wave of NATO-led air strikes against Serbia-Montenegro. Today, Kosovo is run by a United Nations interim administration, and a NATO-led military force, KFOR, is in charge of security.

Despite relative (and ostensible) calm, there are numerous problems making Kosovo a trouble spot in the heart of Balkans: its complex ethnic structure, lack of law and order, households possessing small arsenals of weaponry, the situation of displaced Serbs and smuggling. Worse, in a year’s time, even today’s relative calm could turn into politically violent turmoil.

The de jure Serbian province boasts Albanian flags on almost every corner — a visible sign of a common desire to unite with Albania, a desire that does not seem feasible in the present-day Balkan geopolitics. But the predominantly Albanian Kosovo will be an acid test for stability in the Balkans.

Most Kosovars say a return to Serbian rule is out of question after six years of international governance. Serbian rule again, says a mayor, will only mean catastrophe and violence.

The reality is that, in either case, Kosovo will mean trouble for the Balkans. Restoring Serbian rule will mean clashes, while independence will inevitably have serious political repercussions in the Balkan periphery, including Greece and Turkey.

For example, ethnic Turks fear an independent Kosovo, ruled by the Albanian elite, will only mean assimilation or de facto deportation for them. They fear rising Albanian nationalism may turn violent against the Turks of Kosovo. Ironically, most ethnic Turks empathize with ethnic Serbs vis-a-vis the Albanians, disregarding their religious unity with the predominant ethnicity.

Ankara is aware of all that. In 1999, Turkey sent a battalion to Kosovo under a United Nations Security Council resolution. The Turkish mission force, based in Prizren, has two other units in Dragash, south of Prizren, and Mamusha, a Turkish village north of Prizren.

The Turkish troops not only perform security missions, but humanitarian missions as well, including building schools and roads, restoring historical buildings, healthcare and social work. The Turkish presence in Kosovo is very “visible.”

Kosovo not only draws the interest of Turkey. It is a hot spot for every nation that has an interest in Balkan stability, even the superpower across the Atlantic, or common refugee destinations like Switzerland.

The problem to interested outsiders is that none of the potential options for Kosovo’s future look politically viable. In every sense, Kosovo is a tiny territory but a big puzzle for the international and regional powers to resolve. For many reasons, Kosovo is a serious challenge for stability in the Balkans.